Top 20 WORST Anime of All Time
They're the worst the anime scene has to offer! Join Ashley as we look over the absolute bottom of the barrel when it comes to anime
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00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're scraping at the bottom of the barrel for what might
00:09just be the most awful anime to ever air.
00:18Number 20, The Island of the Giant Insects.
00:22We love schlocky monster movies.
00:24We love So Bad It's Good anime.
00:27At the very least, this should have been some passable cheesy fun.
00:30But nope, it's just gross.
00:37Ignoring the horrendous 3D animation, there's something fetishistic about how each of the
00:43busty students are killed off by the colossal bugs, making for a really uncomfortable watching
00:49experience.
00:50Even if the characters are all asshats practically begging to be taken out, there's no morbid
00:55joy to be found here.
00:57There's a right and a wrong way to do campy horror, and this is not it.
01:11Number 19, Dark Cat.
01:13Yeah, we hadn't heard of this one either.
01:16Then we watched it, and instantly regretted our decision.
01:20The plot is beyond generic, focusing on a pair of brothers who hunt down tentacle monsters
01:26by transforming into house cats?
01:29Not exactly the pinnacle of imagination.
01:42Pair that with the dullest and most uninspired romance among any OVA from the 90s, and it
01:48all becomes too tempting to want to throw this kitty right into the trash.
01:53Though we do have to applaud just how awful the dub is for this one.
01:57It's impressively atrocious.
02:16Number 18, Wonder Momo.
02:18We've seen side-scrolling beat-'em-ups be turned into legitimately great anime over
02:23the years, and this is most certainly not one of them.
02:31They took scantily-clad idols, dressed them like Tekkaman rip-offs, who happened to shoot
02:36lasers from hula hoops, and made it boring as all hell.
02:41Maybe that's due to the five-minute runtime or choppy animation, but it gets to the point
02:46where you're wondering if you'd be more entertained if this was a hentai.
02:59Either that, or next time, pick a better arcade game to adapt.
03:03Number 17, Rusted Armors.
03:06And just when you thought the truly abysmal anime was locked away back in the wilderness
03:11of yesteryears, no chance.
03:18Some of these modern cash-grabs are in a league of their own, following off the back of Ex-Arm
03:22and Berserk 2016.
03:24If anyone even cared to watch this thing, it may have been the next big WTF anime, but
03:29as it stands, it sits in the squalid shadows of those that came before it.
03:34Don't be fooled, though, it's still terrible, with the 3D animation leaps and bounds behind
03:40the times, made all the worse when the fight scenes and background art look like this.
03:53Number 16, Mahou Shoujo Naria Girls.
04:08To say the magical girl genre has become saturated would be a mighty understatement,
04:13let alone that of the idol scene.
04:16So what happens when you smash both together without bothering to do anything interesting
04:20with the result?
04:22An abomination of 3D, so lazily cobbled together, that even at the time, anyone at home could
04:27likely have put together something better.
04:30What's the story?
04:32Does it even matter?
04:33This is just another reason why Precure is high art.
04:45Number 15, Ladies' Poe When the title, which is an abbreviation
04:49of Ladies' Sports, is the cleverest thing about this show, you know you've got quite
04:54the train wreck on your hands.
05:00The idea of an all-female sports team battling it out in a sci-fi setting isn't the worst
05:05idea we've ever heard.
05:07The heights that regular sports shows can reach by themselves are beyond impressive.
05:11As always, it's in the execution, and from the looks of things, we're guessing some
05:16poor intern, who had never animated in his life, was forced to cobble this together.
05:22It's more like a glorified slideshow.
05:28Number 14, Hanukkah No, this isn't a flash animation on Newgrounds.
05:33It's a legitimate anime.
05:36Alas, it fails at the starting line.
05:42Even if your nostalgia for this art style rings true, it buckles under the weight of
05:47its lofty narrative aspirations.
05:50Human-alien hybrid, raised to be a weapon, struggling with her identity, military vs.
05:55extraterrestrial shenanigans, we've seen all these a million times before, and each
06:01one of them hit the mark better.
06:03It's sort of tragic, because deep down, you can tell there was passion for this.
06:08It's just that the budget couldn't match the ambition.
06:17Number 13, Ninja Collection First thing's first, there's no actual
06:22ninjas here, so that's strike one.
06:27But even if there were, nothing could save this series from the sum of its parts.
06:31It's crudely animated, unscary, and obnoxious parts.
06:36Horror and spookiness can take all kinds of forms in anime, even with a minimalist approach
06:42to the visuals.
06:43But, there is a limit, and unfortunately, this anthology is nothing more than a waste
06:48of time that somehow was broadcast for all to see.
06:52There's a reason why Yamashibai Japanese Ghost Stories is still going strong, and this…
06:58well, it isn't.
07:02Number 12, EX-ARM There have been a select few anime whose
07:06overall ineptitude caused them widespread condemnation upon release, and EX-ARM sits
07:12happily among that pantheon.
07:14The combination of average 2D art combined with truly abysmal 3D art cannot be understated.
07:30This thing is ugly to look at when the characters are static, and downright laughable when they
07:35throw themselves into a fight scene.
07:37The sci-fi narrative isn't anything to write home about either, but even if it was penned
07:42by a master wordsmith, we doubt anyone would give it the time of day when it looks like
07:47the 3D models are actively trying to un-alive themselves.
08:04A samurai and a ninja get pulled into a dystopian future plagued with infected humans, and fall
08:11flat on their face every step of the way.
08:14Before release, this was supposed to be the next big thing.
08:17And yet, between penning the idea and releasing it onto the world, everything went wrong.
08:23Characters are flat, the art is ugly to behold, the story has no weight, the fight scenes
08:29are an exercise in frustration, and all you get from binging the whole thing is a profound
08:35sense of wasted time.
08:37It's a landmark in modern anime failures, and hopefully we've seen the last of its
08:42kind.
08:43I mean, we probably haven't, but we can still dream.
08:53Given the series' creator had to apologise for just how much of a negative reception
08:57it received, it's fair to say that it's so bad its good status was unintentional.
09:08The story itself is rather uninspired, with a gun-wielding samurai warrior travelling
09:12through feudal Japan, taking out monsters.
09:15Unfortunately, that's only the start of its problems.
09:18The animation is horrendous, the backgrounds look like they're taken out of Google Images,
09:24and the sound quality is constantly dipping.
09:35Unintentional hilarity is the name of the game when it comes to this series, something
09:38you probably don't want when you're trying to create a detective thriller about government
09:44corruption.
09:45However, due to sub-par animation quality, and a bland lead character who's pretty
09:54much Super James Bond, that's exactly what we get.
09:57The action has no impact, and the character has no likeability, so all we're left with
10:03is a dull set of static scenes, which prevents us from getting invested into the supposedly
10:09engrossing political capers.
10:21Even with low animation quality, many a series has shown that they can overcome their limits,
10:27and still produce amazing work.
10:31Especially when you start your series with your female lead being assaulted by the so-called
10:37As some other plot points about the gold rush in the Amazon rainforest, but it's as drab
10:49as can be.
10:50What's that?
10:51She ends up falling for him right after he attacks her?
10:54Because of course she does.
11:04A series meant to celebrate 25 years of the Gundam franchise?
11:11Well that sounds awesome.
11:12What are you going to give us?
11:14Have a mass crossover with the main pilots?
11:17Nope.
11:18Instead, what we get is a watered-down 3D version aimed at a very, very young audience.
11:27The mobile suits are sentient, the animation is just ugly to behold, and feels more like
11:32a cash grab than a celebration of such a beloved franchise.
11:38This ain't Gundam Build Fighters.
11:43If the aim of the game was to literally promote a game with this adaptation, this thing is
11:48a spectacular failure.
11:53We get a glimpse at what we can assume will be our main cast, but barely anything happens.
11:59Just a lot of badly animated walking and talking that fails to bring the world these
12:03cardboard cutouts inhabit to life.
12:07You know, for a supposed generation filled with it, we don't see a lot of chaos going
12:11on here.
12:24Because that's what one of fiction's greatest detectives was missing.
12:28He needed more vampires.
12:30So what else could we expect from an anime based on a smartphone app?
12:38What little this series could have offered is quickly flushed away in lieu of terrible
12:43gags, all horribly rendered in 3D CG.
12:46Are there even any actual bloodsuckers in this series, or is just the show itself slowly
12:51killing our brain cells in bite-sized pieces?
13:13Fancy checking out a classic anime movie?
13:16Well, do yourself a favour and avoid this one, because we doubt you are ready to experience
13:22this level of insanity.
13:23After being informed by a cancerous growth that a demonic army is about to invade the
13:28Earth, a lone surgeon is imbued with superhuman strength and sent thousands of years into
13:34the past to defeat it.
13:36That might sound like a hilarious head trip, but trust us, it is not worth it.
13:41Its editing leaps all over the place, its story doesn't go beyond muscular physician
13:45punches demon, and features a slew of unwarranted, raunchy scenes complete with synth music.
13:58You don't have to be a psychic to tell how bad this flick is.
14:05And this is why low-tier video game developers don't always make the best choices for anime
14:10creators.
14:20When an alien object appears over Tokyo, it's down to a group of young ladies, all in scantily
14:25clad uniforms, piloting horribly animated mechs to defeat it.
14:30What may work for a JRPG, clearly doesn't translate well to the screen in this instance.
14:36The alien menace, which is frankly an animated sin against the medium, practically takes
14:41a backseat to the would-be harem, who in themselves have no character to speak of.
14:47The fact they essentially try to lore-dump a whole season's worth into a single OVA
14:52is startling.
15:07Prepare yourselves, because this is where things get really ugly.
15:11When a virus is unleashed on the populace, an affected brother and sister find themselves
15:16in something of a perpetual hell, which we are forced to witness.
15:20This includes the older brother getting dissected over and over, since he can regenerate his
15:25flesh, allowing his little sister to eat pieces of him.
15:29We also see every adult act out their sadistic wants.
15:32And finally, the bittersweet conclusion as brother and sister turn into hideous monsters
15:38and devour each other.
15:40Have fun scrubbing that from your brain.
16:05From the same company that gave us Skelter Heaven, comes what can only be considered
16:10a massive failure in anime.
16:13How does it hold up?
16:14Characters that are thinner than paper, below-subpar animation, a narrative so clunky and rushed
16:21that you barely have any time to wrap your head around what's going on before the show
16:25actually has the nerve to try and drop a twist ending.
16:37It's so desperate to ride on the high of other invasion anime, that it's kind of
16:45embarrassing.
16:47Long may it live in infamy.
16:52Which anime do you consider to be the worst?
16:54Let us know in those comments below.